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The North test-fired four short-range missiles, between 5:20 p.m. and 9:20 p.m. local time, from a base near the eastern port of Wonsan, according to the Defense Ministry.
The four missiles flew about 100 kilometers, defense officials said. They are believed to be ground-to-ship KN-01 missiles with a range of up to 160 kilometers, upgraded from Silkworms. The test seemed part of a military drill, the officials said, adding the North is likely to test-fire more missiles in the near future.
Thursday's missile test came as a North Korean cargo vessel suspected of shipping weapons is being tracked by a U.S. Navy destroyer. The ship, Kang Nam, was believed bound for Myanmar, but has reportedly changed course, going back to its home port in North Korea.
The missile tests are the latest in a series of aggressive moves by the North, highlighted by a nuclear weapons test on May 25 and the launch of a long-range ballistic missile on April 5, capable of being equipped with a nuclear warhead. Just after the nuclear test, North Korea fired six short-range missiles on its east coast.
In response, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 1874, calling for tougher cargo inspections, a tighter arms embargo and stronger financial sanctions. The resolution also bans North Korea from developing and testing missiles and other weapons of mass destruction.
"The missile test seems part of the North's bid to show that it would not bow to U.S.-led international pressure," said Baek Seung-joo, a senior analyst at Seoul's state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.
Apart from the U.N. sanctions, the United States has strengthened independent measures to punish the defiant communist country that has posed a major challenge to U.S. President Barack Obama's campaign to create a world free of nuclear weapons.
The U.S. State Department has moved to freeze the assets of the North's Namchongang Trading Corporation and ban it from dealing with any Americans. The department described the company as a "nuclear-related company in Pyongyang" that has been "involved in the purchase of aluminum tubes and other equipment specifically suitable for a uranium enrichment program since the late 1990s."
The U.S. Treasury has also imposed financial sanctions on an Iranian-based firm named Hong Kong Electronics for allegedly aiding the North's missile programs. The Iranian company has since 2007 "transferred millions of dollars of proliferation-related funds” on behalf of the North's Tanchon Commercial Bank and Korea Mining Development Trading Corp and has "facilitated the movement of money from Iran to North Korea," it said.
The State Department also said it would not send food aid to North Korea without assurances from the regime that the aid will reach those in need. "We currently have no plans to provide additional food aid to North Korea and any additional food would have to have assurances that it would be appropriately used," it said.
Obama has designated Robert King, senior official on the House Foreign Relations Committee, as his special envoy on North Korean human rights. The United States seems poised to raise the sensitive issue to put pressure on the communist regime, which has detained two American journalists since March 17.
North Korea one month ago sentenced the two women reporters, for what it said was an illegal border crossing and an unspecified "grave crime," to 12 years in the country's notorious labor camp, where torture and malnutrition are rampant.
The North has also detained a South Korean visitor to the inter-Korean joint industrial complex north of the border since March 30, on charges of criticizing Pyongyang's political system and trying to lure a North Korean female worker into the capitalist South.
North Korea has rejected Seoul's requests for access to the detainee, whose whereabouts are still unknown. Defectors from the North said the detainee could be punished on espionage charges.
At cross-border talks on Thursday on the fate of the troubled joint factory park, the North again refused to discuss the release of the South Korean detainee. During the meeting, South Korean delegates demanded to know the health condition of the detained worker, but North Korea "did not show any particular response," according to Seoul's Unification Ministry.
The border talks ruptured as the North insisted on demands that are unacceptable to the South – a whopping 31-fold increase in land rent and quadrupling of wages for North Korean workers. The move is seen as effectively shutting down the inter-Korean industrial complex, the ministry said.
